Smart Ways to Prepare for Crisis

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 4:26pm | by Karlin Sloan

Today is day three in the blog tour for my new book titled UNFEAR: Facing Change In An Era Of Uncertainty. Yesterday, A Successful Woman hosted the first installment of what will be a four day blast at this site, with an article I titled, Stop your whining! Three steps to being complaint free. Today, I hope you enjoy the second of four articles that will post here, Smart Ways to Prepare for Crisis.

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Smart Ways to Prepare for Crisis

What’s the difference between a challenge and a crisis? A crisis is a threat to the immediate survival of the organization, or to the immediate health and well-being of people associated with it.

During a crisis, we may need some fear to remain vigilant. That fear is informative. We gain when we are alert and prepared, and fear can be a way to remain vigilant. But we need not be overcome by fear of the future as long as we acknowledge the real. As long as it isn’t the kind of fear that locks us down into fight, flight, or freeze without the ability to make conscious choices, it’s good information. The key is to stay alert, be prepared, and be informed by our fear rather than controlled by it.

Here’s a short list of some crisis situations that might at some point affect you and your organization:

Smart organizations don’t let crises put them into fight, flight, or freeze. They have a plan, and they are prepared to act on that plan.

TRY THIS

Identify Issues for Scenario Planning

This particular exercise is designed to make your dialog valuable as you address different arenas that impact your business. It is adapted from Peter Schwartz, who wrote in artful detail about scenario planning in the highly recommended book The Art of the Long View. This is one that requires a facilitator who is not on your team, and who has experience with strategic planning.

STEP ONE: Identify What’s Keeping You Awake at Night

Take a few minutes to jot down some of the critical decisions facing your company or organization. Review and discuss; choose one or two ideas to serve as the focal issue for your scenarios.

STEP TWO: Environmental Scan

Take a look at the macro: What world changes are impacting your business? Hang up separate flip charts for each topic area and take a full hour to write up a scan of the following areas:

Have each person in your group review what is on the flip charts. Discuss trends you see.

STEP FOUR: Rank Issues by Importance and Uncertainty

Rank the top issues you see, using the categories of importance and uncertainty. You are looking for the issues that are the most important, and the most uncertain. These two headlines will give you great insights into what you need to address in scenario planning. There may only be one driving force that seems both critical and uncertain—or there may be two or three. Choosing more than three for discussion gets cumbersome.

STEP FIVE: Create Scenarios/Create Your Plan

Once you have your top issues by importance and uncertainty, you can create one, two, or even three scenarios to work through as a group. The scenario might be very simple; if you were working at an airline, it might be an airplane crash scenario. The plan would address the top issues posed by that scenario.

STEP SIX: Scenario Plan Must-Haves

Make sure your plan addresses the what, who, how, when, and what that will happen based on your issue. If we are using the airline example, the plan needs to include what each department does to address the issue—from PR/communications (and what the executives would be expected to say), to training and development and HR (how did the flight attendants respond, how do customer service reps handle inquiries, what do they do to contact loved ones?), to technology, to engineering and maintenance. Each area of the business must be prepared to either avoid or handle these scenarios.

Remember, these exercises take time, and you may need multiple days to address these issues.

Day four of the tour features a podcast interview between myself and Wayne Turmel a writer, speaker and former corporate drone from Chicago, who hosts one of the world's most successful business podcasts- The Cranky Middle Manager Show. Day Four brings the tour back to, A Successful Woman, for an article on, The Death of Short Term Thinking.

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